A Machine Beat Me at Chess, but I Still Support AI

Summary

Garry Kasparov reflects on losing to IBM’s Deep Blue nearly 30 years ago and argues that democracies need a positive, practical vision for artificial intelligence. He says AI is already producing benefits in everyday productivity, autonomous driving, early cancer detection and personalized cancer vaccines, but public debate has become dominated by fears about job displacement, data centers, biological weapons and human extinction. Kasparov accepts that these risks are real, while arguing that dramatic predictions can crowd out evidence-based discussion and eventually weaken support for sensible regulation. He proposes regulating data centers rather than banning them, and placing AI oversight under accountable governments instead of leaving the industry to police itself. He also calls for a nationwide training effort to help workers move into new roles, education that teaches people when AI should and should not be used, and widespread tools for identifying synthetic text, images and video. In his view, AI-generated “slop” threatens media literacy and democratic discourse, while learning to distinguish human and machine-made content can help preserve individual agency. Kasparov further argues that democratic countries have a responsibility to keep developing AI because authoritarian states, particularly China and Russia, will continue to pursue it. He warns that technological leadership should not come at the expense of safeguards, privacy or public accountability, but concludes that innovation and regulation are complementary rather than mutually exclusive. The essay therefore presents AI as a political and civic challenge: societies must manage its harms while deliberately pursuing its potential to improve health, work and daily life.